Tag: fabrication
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6-Day Wonder: Sterling’s Stealth ’64 Corvair Full Respray
By Gabe Lopez, Owner of Sterling Restorations It’s not often in the restoration business that you encounter a 60-year-old classic car that’s, well, almost perfect. For those of us who make a living sanding, welding, and fixing decades of rust and poor repairs, finding a truly solid foundation is the equivalent of striking gold. That’s…
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Doug Hargrove’s V8 Corvair
The Modesto area has a rich history of Corvair racers. SFBA life member Doug Hargrove is one of those race car builders and drivers. We thought you would enjoy reading about Doug’s undertaking of an abandoned V8 project Corvair. The original article and a massive archive of V8 powered Corvairs can be found on the…
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An El Corvino Story
New to Corvairs and never heard of the “El Corvino”? What is this air-cooled Ute and what is the story behind it? Much like the Corvair roadsters and “shorty’s”, the “El Corvino” was never a production car. In fact, it may have never been a GM concept car. It was, however, the brainchild of a…
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Revisiting Great Articles ~ Water-Cooled Corvair Engine Offers Technical Delight
This article by Bob Helt appeared in the November 1981 issue of the CORSA Communique magazine. CORSA members can read the original article, which includes several additional photos, by logging into the CORSA website. The 1966 Corvair Monza appeared to be in almost factory stock condition as it sat in Lloyd’s garage. Only the twin…
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Bringing a ’65 Corvair Corsa Back to Life: A Body and Paint Restoration Journey. Part 4 of 4
After a second priming stage, we painted the smaller areas. The trunk was refinished in the original grey with white specks, and the underside and engine bay received a coat of satin black (60% gloss). Then came the payoff for countless hours of block sanding and prep: the final application of the Madeira Maroon. The…
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Bringing a ’65 Corvair Corsa Back to Life: A Body and Paint Restoration Journey. Part 3 of 4
Perfecting the Metal and Bodywork Getting the now-bare metal shell back from the blasters revealed a few more spots that needed attention. We finished any remaining welding and fabrication on the clean metal before finally diving into the bodywork. Our goal was to align all the panels to tolerances even better than the factory ever…
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Bringing a ’65 Corvair Corsa Back to Life: A Body and Paint Restoration Journey. Part 2 of 4
Uncovering Hidden Damage and Fabrication The first stage was what I call “pre-paint stripping.” Using extremely coarse grit sandpaper, we manually removed the old paint and, more importantly, the heavy layers of old body filler that were hiding shoddy repairs. It’s always a relief when an owner is prepared, and luckily, Bruce had sourced new…
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Bringing a ’65 Corvair Corsa Back to Life: A Body and Paint Restoration Journey. Part 1 of 4
Gabe Lopez of Sterling Restorations was kind enough to share the story of restoring Bruce’s 65 Corsa convertible. Many longtime SFBA members may remember this car belonging to Marc Bruchy. Mark’s parents bought the Corvair brand new in San Francisco. Marc grew up with the car in his family and, eventually, inherited it. After some…
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